William Cowper Quotations | Page 3

His wit invites you by his looks to come, But when you knock, it never is at home.

Remorse, the fatal egg by pleasure laid, In every bosom where her nest is made, Hatched by the beams of truth, denies him rest, And proves a raging scorpion in his breast.

And diff'ring judgments serve but to declare that truth lies somewhere, if we knew but where.

Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees, Rock'd in the cradle of the western breeze.

Scenes must be beautiful which daily view'd Please daily, and whose novelty survives Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years.

How readily we wish time spent revoked, that we might try the ground again where once--through inexperience, as we now perceive--we missed that happiness we might have found!

Habits are soon assumed; but when we strive to strip them off, 'tis being flayed alive.

Restraining prayer, we cease to fight; Prayer keeps the Christian's armor bright; And Satan trembles when he sees The weakest saint upon his knees.

An idler is a watch that wants both hands; As useless if it goes as when it stands.

Far happier are the dead methinks than they who look for death and fear it every day.

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds.

A story, in which native humour reigns, Is often useful, always entertains; A graver fact, enlisted on your side, May furnish illustration, well applied; But sedentary weavers of long tales Give me the fidgets, and my patience fails.

He that has seen both sides of fifty has lived to little purpose if he has no other views of the world than he had when he was much younger.

Mountains interposed Make enemies of nations, who had else Like kindred drops been mingled into one.

What is there in the vale of lifeHalf so delightful as a wife;When friendship, love and peace combineTo stamp the marriage-bond divine?

For 'tis a truth well known to most, That whatsoever thing is lost, We seek it, ere it comes to light, In every cranny but the right.

Elegant as simplicity, and warm As ecstasy.

And the tear that is wiped with a little address, May be follow'd perhaps by a smile.

Some to the fascination of a name, Surrender judgment hoodwinked.

Trials make the promise sweet, Trials give new life to prayer; Trials bring me to His feet, Lay me low, and keep me there.

The man to solitude accustom'd long, Perceives in everything that lives a tongue; Not animals alone, but shrubs and trees Have speech for him, and understood with ease, After long drought when rains abundant fall, He hears the herbs and flowers rejoicing all.

Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.

Solitude, seeming a sanctuary, proves a grave; a sepulchre in which the living lie, where all good qualities grow sick and die

But oars alone can ne'er prevail To reach the distant coast; The breath of Heaven must swell the sail, Or all the toil is lost.

No tree in all the grove but has its charms, Though each its hue peculiar.

I will venture to assert, that a just translation of any ancient poet in rhyme is impossible. No human ingenuity can be equal to the task of closing every couplet with sounds homotonous, expressing at the same time the full sense, and only the full sense of his original.

Men deal with life as children with their play, Who first misuse, then cast their toys away.

The innocent seldom find an uncomfortable pillow.

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds: And as the mind is pitch'd the ear is pleased With melting airs, or martial, brisk or grave; Some chord in unison with what we hear Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.

Books are not seldom talismans and spells.

Tea - the cups that cheer but not inebriate.

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa around, And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in

The Cross! There, and there only (though the deist rave, and the atheist, if Earth bears so base a slave); There and there only, is the power to save.

There is a pleasure in poetic pains / Which only poets know.

I pity them greatly, but I must be mum, for how could we do without sugar and rum?

How happy it is to believe, with a steadfast assurance, that our petitions are heard even while we are making them; and how delightful to meet with a proof of it in the effectual and actual grant of them.

This fond attachment to the well-known place Whence first we started into life's long race, Maintains its hold with such unfailing sway, We feel it e'en in age, and at our latest day.

A life of ease is a difficult pursuit.

Oh to have a lodge in some vast wilderness. Where rumors of oppression and deceit, of unsuccessful and successful wars may never reach me anymore.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.

The Spirit breathes upon the Word and brings the truth to sight.

As creeping ivy clings to wood or stone, And hides the ruin that it feeds upon, So sophistry, cleaves close to, and protects Sin's rotten trunk, concealing its defects.

I am out of humanity's reach.I must finish my journey alone,Never hear the sweet music of speech;I start at the sound of my own.

Religion Caesar never knew Thy posterity shall sway, Where his eagles never flew, None as invincible as they.

It is a general rule of Judgment, that a mischief should rather be admitted than an inconvenience.

Most satirists are indeed a public scourge; Their mildest physic is a farrier's purge; Their acrid temper turns, as soon as stirr'd, The milk of their good purpose all to curd. Their zeal begotten, as their works rehearse, By lean despair upon an empty purse.

Greece, sound, thy Homer's, Rome thy Virgil's name, But England's Milton equals both in fame.

Some people are more nice than wise.

When I thinkof my own native land, In a moment I seem to be there; But alas! recollection at hand Soon hurries me back to despair.

The man that dares traduce, because he can with safety to himself, is not a man.

The mind, relaxing into needful sport, Should turn to writers of an abler sort, Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style, Give truth a lustre, and make wisdom smile.

Though peace be made, yet it's interest that keep peace.

Laugh at all you trembled at before.

All zeal for a reform, that gives offence To peace and charity, is mere pretence.

But truths on which depends our main concern, That 'tis our shame and misery not to learn, Shine by the side of every path we tread With such a lustre he that runs may read.

Ten thousand casks, Forever dribbling out their base contents, Touch'd by the Midas finger of the state, Bleed gold for ministers to sport away. Drink, and be mad then; 'tis your country bids!

Tis Providence alone secures In every change both mine and yours.

Transforms old print To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes Of gallery critics by a thousand arts.

Religion, if in heavenly truths attired, Needs only to be seen to be admired.

I am out of humanity's reach.

There is mercy in every place. And mercy, encouraging thought gives even affliction a grace and reconciles man to his lot.

The cares of today are seldom those of tomorrow.

When from soft love proceeds the deep distress, ah! why forbid the willing tears to flow?

The only amarantine flower on earth Is virtue.

Hast thou not learnd what thou art often told, A truth still sacred, and believed of old, That no success attends on spears and swords Unblest, and that the battle is the Lords?

There goes the parson, oh illustrious spark! And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.

Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan his work in vain; God is his own interpreter, And he will make it plain.

I venerate the man whose heart is warm, Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life, Coincident, exhibit lucid proof That he is honest in the sacred cause.

We bear our shades about us; self-deprived Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread, And range an Indian waste without a tree.

Words learn'd by rote a parrot may rehearse, But talking is not always to converse, Not more distinct from harmony divine The constant creaking of a country sign.

He that negotiates between God and man, As God's ambassador, the grand concerns Of judgment and of mercy, should beware Of lightness in his speech.

Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise, We love the play-place of our early days; The scene is touching, and the heart is stone, That feels not at that sight, and feels at none.

Blest be the art that can immortalize.

A moral, sensible, and well-bred manWill not affront me, and no other can.

A glory gilds the sacred page, Majestic like the sun, It gives a light to every age, It gives, but borrows none.

Truth is the golden girdle of the globe.

Sin let loose speaks punishment at hand.

When all within is peace How nature seems to smile Delights that never cease The live-long day beguile

The path of sorrow, and that path alone, leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.

Would I describe a preacher, I would express him simple, grave, sincere; In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain, And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste, And natural in gesture; much impress'd Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds May feel it too; affectionate in look, And tender in address, as well becomes A messenger of grace to guilty men.

Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free; They touch our country, and their shackles fall.

I would not have a slave to till my ground, To carry me, to fan me while I sleep, And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.

I seem forsaken and alone, / I hear the lion roar; / And every door is shut but one, / And that is Mercy's door.

The things that mount the rostrum with a skip, And then skip down again, pronounce a text, Cry hem; and reading what they never wrote Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work, And with a well-bred whisper close the scene!

There is a mixture of evil in everything we do; indulgence encourages us to encroach, while we Crabbe exercise the rights of children, we become childish.

Absence of occupation is not rest.

I am monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute, From the centre all round to the sea, I am lord of the fowl and the brute.

Go, mark the matchless working of the power That shuts within the seed the future flower; Bids these in elegance of form excel. In color these, and those delight the smell; Sends nature forth, the daughter of the skies, To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes.

Skins may differ, but affection Dwells in white and black the same.

He that runs may read.

The few that pray at all pray oft amiss.

God never meant that man should scale the Heavens By strides of human wisdom. In his works, Though wondrous, he commands us in his word To seek him rather where his mercy shines.

But, oh, Thou bounteous Giver of all good, Thou art, of all Thy gifts, Thyself thy crown!

She that asks Her dear five hundred friends, contemns them all, And hates their coming.

Fashion, leader of a chatt'ring train, Whom man for his own hurt permits to reign Who shifts and changes all things but his shape, And would degrade her vot'ry to an ape, The fruitful parent of abuse and wrong, Holds a usurp'd dominion o'er his tongue, There sits and prompts him with his own disgrace, Prescribes the theme, the tone, and the grimace, And when accomplish'd in her wayward school, Calls gentleman whom she has made a fool.

Poor England! thou art a devoted deer, Beset with every ill but that of fear. The nations hunt; all mock thee for a prey; They swarm around thee, and thou stand'st at bay.

We sacrifice to dress till household joys and comforts cease. Dress drains our cellar dry, and keeps our larder lean.

All flesh is grass. and all its glory fades Like the fair flower dishevell'd in the wind; Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream; The man we celebrate must find a tomb, And we that worship him, ignoble graves.

He that attends to his interior self, That has a heart, and keeps it; has a mind That hungers, and supplies it; and who seeks A social, not a dissipated life, Has business.

The statesman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade Pants for the refuge of some rural shade, Where all his long anxieties forgot Amid the charms of a sequester'd spot, Or recollected only to gild o'er And add a smile to what was sweet before, He may possess the joys he thinks he sees, Lay his old age upon the lap of ease, Improve the remnant of his wasted span. And having lived a trifler, die a man.